Inescapable (Men of Mercy Novel, A) (15 page)

“Is she sick? Sicker than we thought? Is she going to die?”

“God, no!” Flick grabbed Pippa’s face and held her cheeks so that she had to look at her. “I promise you, she’s not hurt. Or sick. Or dying. It’s not that bad.”

Pippa wrenched herself away and stepped back, her chest heaving. “But it’s not good news?”

“I can’t tell you!” Flick shouted, frustrated. “Don’t you think I want to? I’ve begged her, Pips, but she’s standing firm.”

“If you loved me you’d tell me,” Pippa stated, her face and tone steel-hard. The heat of her anger had burned away but it was hardening, solidifying. This wasn’t going to go away.

“I’m so sorry.” Flick brushed a tear off her cheek. “Please try to understand.”

“She’s my mother, not yours. You can’t just take her over because your own mother didn’t love you enough to stick around,” Pippa said. “She’s my mother!”

“I know, Pips.” Flick used both her hands to wipe away her tears, trying to push past the hurt to remind herself that Pippa was in pain, that she was lashing out, that she’d hate herself for being such a bitch in the morning. But her words still felt like acid in an open wound.

Your own mother didn’t love you enough to stick around . . .

“Tell me and we’ll pretend this didn’t happen.”

But it was happening and they couldn’t go back. Flick wanted to tell her, wanted all this to go away. But Kai’s voice in her head told her that no matter how hard it was, she’d promised, and she had to stick to that promise. Because integrity was doing the right thing, even when times got tough.

“I can’t,” Flick said, choking the words out between her sobs. “I promised.”

“I’ll never forgive you for this! I will
never
,
ever
forgive you,” Pippa said before running out of the living room and up the stairs. Flick heard the door to her bedroom slam closed and she slowly stood up.

She had to get out. She couldn’t stay here. She couldn’t breathe and she felt like the walls were closing in on her.

Damn you, Gina
, Flick thought as she walked out of the living room and into the hall and back out of the front door.
You are selfish and stubborn, just like my mother was
.
I love you, Gina, but don’t really like you right now.

Ch
apter Ten

SawyersFutureWife: Missing Sawyer.

JasonSturgiss: I am selling my old treadmill. Will entertain offers. Find me at the Fire House.

MandyK: Jason, why haven’t you called me? You’re not answering your phone or replying to my messages. Why? What did I do wrong? I’m soooooo sad.

***

Kai stepped into the Smirking Fox and sneezed from the combination of smells from perfume and beer and fried food. He’d been conscious of a low-grade headache all day and while he enjoyed Axl’s company, he wished that they were sitting on his porch in the fresh air. He really didn’t want to have to fight his way to the bar to get a drink, wasn’t interested in making small talk, and definitely didn’t want to bat off the subtle, and occasionally flat-out obvious, invitations from the bar bunnies.

He must be getting old, he decided as he followed Axl to the bar. There was a time when bars and clubs had been his hunting ground, when he’d felt as home in establishments like these as he did on the streets or on the battlefield.
At home on the battleground and on the streets . . . Normal people don’t feel like that
, he mused.

Well, he certainly wasn’t normal. Speaking of, Flick—who was a normal as they came—surprisingly hadn’t had much of a reaction to the little he’d told her of his past. He’d expected shock, some distaste, maybe even a little fascination, but she’d acted like the fact that he had been a low-life street rat wasn’t that big a deal.

But it was, wasn’t it? They came from two totally different worlds, with different ethics and morals. He wasn’t afraid to break the rules and he knew that Flick followed them. He was utterly self-sufficient and Flick needed people like she needed air to breathe. Family and friends were important to her, while he could count the people he wanted at his funeral on one hand.

They were as different as an AK-47 and cotton wool, yet he’d felt a connection to her tonight that went deeper than attraction or sex, something that made him want to open up a little more, that encouraged him to find out exactly what made her tick. And, on that point, what the hell did her aunt think she was doing, asking her to keep secrets from her best friend? He could see the stress of whatever she was dealing with in her eyes, in her tense shoulders, in her slow-to-smile lips.

A life spent on the streets had made calculation and discretion a lifestyle and the military had cemented those traits in Kai, but they were foreign nature to Flick. She loved her aunt, she loved her friend, and she was being asked to value her loyalty to one above her loyalty to the other. That wasn’t fair.

Axl’s elbow in his side pulled him back to the crowded bar and the bartender’s expectant face. Kai ordered his beer and flicked his eyes to the end of the bar, where Jack was serving a group of bikers. As if he felt Kai’s eyes on him, Jack snapped his head up, and his look suggested that he’d like to shove a red-hot poker up his nose. Or somewhere equally unpleasant.

Shit, he hadn’t done anything to Flick. Jack couldn’t beat him up for having lascivious thoughts about his sister, could he? Who the hell knew? This was Mercy, after all.

Axl handed over some cash and took a long sip of his beer. “Why are you getting the hairy eyeball from the dude behind the bar?”

“Long story.”

“Does it have anything to do with the fact that you banged his sister?”

Kai choked on his beer and Axl’s large hand slammed into the space between his shoulder blades. He kept a firm hold on his beer as he rocked on his feet. When he could breathe again and had regained his balance, he met Axl’s amused eyes. “Sawyer can’t keep his mouth shut.”

Axl placed his foot on the railing of the bar. “I think talking about you and what’s-her-name . . . Fudge?”

“Flick, you moron,” Kai grumbled.

“I think that talking about Flick was a good way to distract him from the fuck-up that is his brother.”

There wasn’t a hell of a lot Kai could say to that. After all, he’d told Sawyer about Axl’s and Reagan’s argument for exactly the same reason. “I just can’t wrap my head around Doug raping anyone. The guy is so laid-back he’s practically comatose.”

“The evidence is pointing to him. DNA, her statement, the fight they had.”Axl’s eyes narrowed with tension. “He has admitted that he was high and doesn’t remember a damn thing.”

“If it turns out to be true, it’ll kill Sawyer. He’s stood by Doug through the petty shit, but rape is a whole new ballgame.” Kai placed his arm on the bar.

“I offered to fly out to Cincinnati, asked if he wanted some company, but he told me he wanted to handle this himself,” Axl said.

Kai had made the same offer and had received the same response from Sawyer. He understood. There were just some things that you had to work through on your own. Sawyer knew that they would drop everything if they were needed; the offer had been made and refused. The best way that they could help Sawyer was to look after the business. Speaking of . . .

“Did you have to give me such a hard time about Reagan protecting Callow?” Kai demanded. “And what the hell were you thinking using the company plane to make your point?”

Axl looked him dead in the eye. “Have I ever used the plane when it wasn’t necessary?”

“Okay, no,” Kai admitted. “Why are you here, then?”

“I made a detour from New York.”

“And what were you doing in New York?” Kai asked, his voice pitched so that only Axl could hear him.

“Parent kidnapping. A quick in and out,” Axl responded, his lips barely moving. “Very high-profile couple having a brutal argument about custody. Father took the kid and refused to return her to the mother. They wanted to keep it quiet and I”—Axl hesitated briefly—“resolved the issue.”

Which meant that Axl had restored the kid to his mother on his own.

“Fuck, you are not James Bond, and you know the rule: Always have backup.”

Axl snorted. “Please, the father is a senator’s son who was born with a drawer full of silver spoons in his mouth. The baby was bawling her head off and I had to change the diaper before I could leave.”

Kai lowered his bottle to stare at his friend. “And he just let you leave?”

“Well, I was pointing my Glock at him, but even if I hadn’t been, I think he would’ve just handed the kid over to me—he was that rattled. The kid was hungry and tired and freaked out, screaming her head off, and he didn’t know what the hell to do with her. Apparently he and his wife were separated before the birth and he hasn’t spent any time with the kid at all. Taking her was a fuck-you gesture but once he had her, he knew that he was in over his head. Dipshit.”

“How did he grab her?” Kai asked, fascinated.

“Sneaked up behind the nanny in a crowded mall. Nanny let go of the stroller, turned away, and he walked away with her. Store cameras captured a full headshot so they knew, immediately, who’d done it and where the kid was. Grandfather is connected, he calls me, I fly over and enter his house. Situation resolved.” Axl shrugged.

“Big paycheck and that little girl is restored to the loving arms of her nanny,” Axl added cynically. “Why the fuck do people have kids if they’re just going to hand them over to someone else to look after?”

Kai didn’t have an answer, so he just shrugged. He looked at Axl and curbed his smile. His warrior friend was a sucker for kids and wanted a bunch of his own. It was just finding, and living with, the provider of said kids that was problematic.

“Speaking of hostage rescues, is Reagan serious about wanting to do rescue?” Axl asked, thunderclouds forming on his face. Kai lifted his eyebrows as Axl’s hand tightened around his beer bottle. He hoped that the damn thing didn’t shatter under the pressure.

“How did she find out anyway?” Axl wondered.

“Reagan isn’t a fool.”

“She’s crazy to think that I would ever let her anywhere near one of my missions,” Axl growled.

“Fight with her, not me,” Kai suggested and glanced at his watch. “She’ll be joining us soon.”

Axl frowned. “I thought she’d left already, the actor was sending his jet.”

“His pilot got sick. It’s coming tomorrow,” Kai explained. Axl groaned. “Thanks so fucking much, Manning. Like I haven’t had enough nagging from her already today. If I wanted my ear burned off, I would marry the woman!”

Kai’s lips twitched. That wasn’t a bad idea, actually. Not that he could see them married—he couldn’t see any of them married—but he could see them together. Reagan was about the only woman who had a strong enough personality to deal with Axl. And Axl had a big enough set of balls to deal with the craziness that was Reagan.

“You suck,” Axl said. “I should wipe the floor with your face.”

“Get in line.”

Kai looked up to see Jack standing over them. Jack followed up his statement by placing his hands on the bar and leaning forward, a gesture that immediately pissed Kai off.

Flick’s brother
, he reminded himself.
Don’t punch the guy.

Kai saw Axl tense and noticed that his right fist was clenched. He shook his head and felt, rather than saw, Axl relax. His partner didn’t need any encouragement to throw a punch, but it wasn’t necessary.

Besides, Kai was a big boy, and the last time he checked, he could still fight his own battles. This was a bartender in Mercy, after all, not a soldier at war.

“Want to explain what’s got your panties in a bunch?” Kai asked.

He thought he was being moderately polite, but Jack’s pissed-off expression suggested otherwise. “I told you that I would rearrange your face if you hurt my sister.”

His sister? As in Flick? What?
Kai lifted up his hands. “Whoa, hold on, Jack. What the hell are you talking about?”

Jack jerked his head in the direction of the staff door. “Flick is sitting in my office and I can see that she’s been crying.”

“Who’s crying?” Axl demanded. When Kai didn’t answer him, he looked at Jack. “Kai made a woman cry? Who is she?”

“Shut up, Axe,” Kai snapped. He’d made lots of woman cry over the years, but this time he wasn’t at fault. And, more important, Flick was crying? Why? When he left her they’d been laughing at Rufus, he’d kissed her cheek, and they’d parted ways, with him regretting the fact that they weren’t going home together.

“Where is she?” Kai demanded, banging his beer bottle onto the bar counter.

“As I said, my office But I don’t want you going anywhere near her. She’s upset enough already,” Jack told him, following him as he walked to the end of the bar. Jack tried to stop him from walking behind the bar and through the door marked Staff Only by placing his hand on Kai’s chest.

“Take your hand off me before I break your fingers,” Kai growled.

Jack held both his hands up as his gaze turned speculative. “She’s not crying over you?”

“Not this time,” Kai said as he pushed open the door and walked into the busy kitchen. The kitchen staff were so busy that they didn’t spare him a glance. “Where’s your office?”

Jack pointed to a door on the other side of the room. “Next to the back door. If she’s not crying about you then why is she crying?” Jack asked, sounding perplexed.

Kai’s face tightened with determination. “That’s what I intend to find out.”

***

“Y
our brother is ready to rearrange my face.”

Flick looked up and blew air into her cheeks. Kai Manning was the last person she wanted to see her like this—blotchy skin, piggy eyes, messy hair—yet he was the only one she could stand to see. Unlike Jack, he wouldn’t try to placate her, wouldn’t try to finagle the reason for her tears out of her. He’d just offer his help.

“Jack always wants to rearrange someone’s face. It’s a quirk of his,” Flick replied in a croaky voice. “What did you do to annoy him?”

“I slept with his baby sister.”

Flick nodded. “That would do it.”

Kai folded his arms and leaned his shoulder into the doorframe. “He also thinks I made you cry.”

“Not this time,” Flick answered, trying to keep her tone light.

Kai nodded. “Then who can I beat up for you?”

Flick managed a wobbly smile. There was the offer of help she expected from him, short and hard-ass, but sweet nonetheless. He was that type of man, the type who would, without fanfare, offer what he could. If he cared about you, even a little, he’d offer his time, his wallet, his fists. He was so much better than he imagined himself to be.

Flick, her feet on the edge of Jack’s desk, looked at him, and for the first time didn’t see the hot guy with the broad shoulders and lion eyes. She didn’t see the ex-soldier or the tough personal protection specialist. She looked past the muscles and the attitude to the man beneath. She just saw Kai.

She knew that he’d expected her to run screaming when he’d told her about his past, but instead of the thug he portrayed himself as, she saw someone who intrigued her mentally and emotionally. Someone who’d been given a hard path to follow, but who’d navigated his life using his brain and his guts, along with his street smarts. Oh, he wasn’t an angel, she knew that, but she also knew, instinctively, that he wasn’t all devil either. He lived by his own code of honor; the people he liked enough to help, he would. He would serve and protect and give as much as he could without removing the layer of Teflon that encased his heart.

He’d been disappointed too many times by too many people to ever risk his heart. It was such a pity, because whoever managed to break through the layers to his heart would be one lucky girl.

Kai snapped his fingers and she blinked. “Sorry . . . what was the question?”

“I was offering my services to beat up whoever it was who made you cry.”

Aw, sweet man. “Thank you, but it wouldn’t be a fair fight.” Flick pushed a curl behind her ear, sadness clouding her features. “I had a horrible fight with Pippa.”

“She told you?” Flick heard Jack’s voice from somewhere behind Kai, and rolled her eyes. “She told you but she wouldn’t tell me?”

“Go away.” Kai followed his terse order with a hard look at Jack.

“It’s my office and she’s my sister.”

“Scram.” Kai stepped into the office and slammed the door closed behind him, muting Jack’s irritated squawk. Flick smiled. There weren’t many men who weren’t intimidated by her big, burly, surly brother. Kai ignored Jack’s thump on the door and flipped the lock. He walked over to the desk and sat down on the corner, placing his hand over her ankle. “I don’t know much about girls and their friendships but I would assume that it was a pretty big argument if it sent you running from your house.”